You know that I like brown/beige sheriff cars, and also Tennessee state police cars, so I'm rather biased about this one, but I will always prefer even simplistic, but unique paint scheme, over blandest out of bland, represented nowadays by Iowa, (Utah... Washington...) and lately also Kansas and Illinois.

Anyway... Nice work on the car!

Generally I agree with you, but Iowa and Utah have been looking the same for more than a decade now, I think they're alright.

What I meant was that Utah and Iowa have excessively simplistic designs. Based on decades old traditions (but so does Connecticut with their purposely unmarked fleet ) but not really living up to recent traffic safety standards.

And while Iowa seems to be more concerned over the matter, and at least have highly visible markings, especially to the rear, they still are winning in the category of most bland door decal design in the history of law enforcement, and having no preset fleet color is also not helping.

Ohio on the other hand is sticking to their winged wheel, which looks quite badass even decades later, though these safety stripes going across the side of their patrol cars are helpless towards the design of last generation Dodge Charger.

[...]What I meant was that Utah and Iowa have excessively simplistic designs. Based on decades old traditions (but so does Connecticut with their purposely unmarked fleet ) but not really living up to recent traffic safety standards.

At least white offers more passive security than most other colors. I think here in Germany the prime-time for silver is over because even politicians realize that white offers better visibility.

QUOTE (Dark One @ May 15 2014, 06:05 PM)

And while Iowa seems to be more concerned over the matter, and at least have highly visible markings, especially to the rear, they still are winning in the category of most bland door decal design in the history of law enforcement, and having no preset fleet color is also not helping.

I have to admit that I kinda like IA 's plain and simple cruisers

QUOTE (Dark One @ May 15 2014, 06:05 PM)

Ohio on the other hand is sticking to their winged wheel, which looks quite badass even decades later, though these safety stripes going across the side of their patrol cars are helpless towards the design of last generation Dodge Charger.

I still liked their cars much more when they were black like in the case of the Cherokees XJ gen or dark brown. At least it's not as big of a step backwards as it was in the case of CoSP who had the most awesome graphics ever a few years ago and now look like VA wannabes.

Well, that's the biggest issue. Utah at least keeps their entire fleet unified as white, and so does Washinton. Iowa and rest of beancounters have entire spectrum from white, through beige, gold, or bronze, to silver, gray, and charcoal ones. Some downright just use whatever damn color they gets their hands on. The more disappointing became that Illinois now follows the suit.

Colorado was really something special with their previous paint scheme, but at least being VA wannabe reqires more effort than weing AL wannabe, or joining bland brigade likes of Kansas.

Speaking of Kansas, I rather liked their "label" door decal from mid ninenties. it was Missouri wannabe, but pretty damn classy.

Yeah I don't understand these undercover-colors for fully marked cruisers, either. I wonder what's better in the end – using just white cars with white usually being cheaper than other (metallic) colors or perhaps earning a bit more money when selling old cars because they are not white?

Still, CoSP is such a big step backwards... the one responsible should be ashamed

Kansas... you're talking about when they had the huge STATE TROOPER lettering on the doors? Looks a bit cheap to me nowadays but what they currently have isn't too great, either. You must like Nebraska SP, then

This thread really may not be the right place to discuss this, but like it can be helped...

What I meant was the Missouri-like "etiquette" they used in mid-nineties before switching to the STATE TROOPER lettering.

But you was still right. What could have helped, would be moving the badge besides the wheelwell (initially the lettering even overlapped the badge, making it genuine logo) like the Nebraska example you mentioned.

And while that indeed might have been cheap way to mark their cruisers, it still is more profound, than merely having logo/shield/seal on the doors and small lettering on the quarter panels.

So you mean this wide decal thing? Pictures of it are rare at the Police Car Web Site ^^ In my opinion that looks like an advertisement, just by its shape it could be stuck to a beer bottle without looking out of place

Your idea of taking the design that followed and move the badge to the front sounds good to me. The initial overlapping way looked okay, but when they moved things a bit it was all too crowded making the new design at least technically better while losing individuality. Though it seems like their cruisers were never that uniform, anyway.

You know that I like brown/beige sheriff cars, and also Tennessee state police cars, so I'm rather biased about this one, but I will always prefer even simplistic, but unique paint scheme, over blandest out of bland, represented nowadays by Iowa, (Utah... Washington...) and lately also Kansas and Illinois.

Anyway... Nice work on the car!

Generally I agree with you, but Iowa and Utah have been looking the same for more than a decade now, I think they're alright.

Illinois on the other hand or Ohio...

Illinois is bringing the stripe back..But slowly..I think for now most cars will get the retro look and they still have 75 Caprices uneqquiped because the they don't have a on site eqquiper like on CHiPs I think all agencies need this) This could have been done sooner but they been crying about funding..

It doesn't look like those markings are reflective, and they are also quite small, so it's not exactly the most visible police car. Also, the lack of a light bar makes it even less visible. At least it's white, which is the most visible colour.

Still, it could be worse. New Zealand police cars in the 70s were grey with the word "Police" on the doors and a single red rotating light on the roof. In the 80s they were white with no less than two rotating blue lights and a light-up police sign between them. The word "Police" was blue, but they rarely had the police badge. Still, the sirens were the best.Check out this PDF: http://www.ipa.org.nz/pdfs/Early_NZ_Police...or_Vehicles.pdfCompare the cars with your local ones from the same era. Which ones were blander?

At least all of them had a single uniform colour. It makes no sense at all to have police cars in different colours. What was Iowa thinking? At least they have high-visibility markings.

It doesn't look like those markings are reflective, and they are also quite small, so it's not exactly the most visible police car. Also, the lack of a light bar makes it even less visible. At least it's white, which is the most visible colour.

Still, it could be worse. New Zealand police cars in the 70s were grey with the word "Police" on the doors and a single red rotating light on the roof. In the 80s they were white with no less than two rotating blue lights and a light-up police sign between them. The word "Police" was blue, but they rarely had the police badge. Still, the sirens were the best.Check out this PDF: http://www.ipa.org.nz/pdfs/Early_NZ_Police...or_Vehicles.pdfCompare the cars with your local ones from the same era. Which ones were blander?

At least all of them had a single uniform colour. It makes no sense at all to have police cars in different colours. What was Iowa thinking? At least they have high-visibility markings.

It would seem alot of the NZ early police vehicles (Model Ts etc.) resemble alot of America's early days..Most was black since the model T only came in that at first and had simply gold paint POLICE on the doors or P.D. they was even too cheap to put city names on them and sirens wasn't allowed at first cause they scared people but since the early ones was for Sergeant and above and reserved mainly for investigations or adminstrative duties most didn't even have red spotlights on the windshield (which was all you could get then) Motorcycles had sirens and either red spotlights or flashing red spotlights and these was the main patrol vehicle for the Illinois State Police, cars being used to transport prisoners.

Now that you say it... but it still looks rather unusual to me. But then again it's like that in VA, too, just with a better design. Why not place the single word directly above the wheel or at least more to the front?

And about who had the most bland cars in the 70's and 80's... over here we had white cars by then with green movable parts, but in many cases not more than a single beacon on the roof. Though the highway patrol had more sometimes, red/white striped rear and additional rear facing lights to warn incoming traffic, at least in the 80's as can be seen here and here.

So you mean this wide decal thing? Pictures of it are rare at the Police Car Web Site ^^ In my opinion that looks like an advertisement, just by its shape it could be stuck to a beer bottle without looking out of place

Thanks, it works best this way.

Indeed, I meant the liqueur etiquette from first half of nineties. It might seem unusual, but as I said, for state police department it was rather classy looking one.

QUOTE

Your idea of taking the design that followed and move the badge to the front sounds good to me. The initial overlapping way looked okay, but when they moved things a bit it was all too crowded making the new design at least technically better while losing individuality. Though it seems like their cruisers were never that uniform, anyway.

It would've worked like magic for Chargers in Kansas, but ironically enough, with Taurus PI and Caprice as cars of their choice, the very solution became impossible to keep for Illinois State Police. Still give them no excuse to buy silver, gray, and bronze cars for their fleet, while reverting their design back to early seventies.

And that one at least had bigass STATE POLICE lettering on the trunklid. That stripe with black lettering they have now looks pathetic in comparison.

QUOTE (Paul Spain @ May 19 2014, 04:08 PM)

Illinois is bringing the stripe back..But slowly..I think for now most cars will get the retro look and they still have 75 Caprices uneqquiped because the they don't have a on site eqquiper like on CHiPs I think all agencies need this) This could have been done sooner but they been crying about funding..

Okay, on that one it looks like what they used in early nineties, but back then, they had the stripe sealed before the taillights, and tipped to the front. New one is simply cut by the fender, and front wheelwell.

Sirens scared people? Things have definitely changed over the past century. In Europe they used bells to begin with, but NZ used air sirens from the beginning. It was a blend of British and European vehicles with American-style liveries and sirens. That applied to ambulances and the Fire Brigade as well as police. The sirens here in the 80s were quite unique, although a bit similar to the Tesla sirens used in the Eastern Bloc during the same era. I have recorded three versions of the NZ siren.

The German police cars of the 80s weren't too bad; it has always been one of my favourite liveries, actually. New Zealand must have followed the German example when it came to lights in the 70s and 80s. The Ministry of Transport (traffic police) cars were different; black and white with red roof lights. Later on they changed to blue and red. We don't have any slicktops here.

Somewhere around here, there is an 80s MoT Falcon in its original livery (but without lights) that has been converted into a drag-racing car. The larger wheels at the back are just about the only things that give it away (well, maybe the parachute). I might have a picture of it somewhere.